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Joshua Grasso · 12-07-2013, 11:45 PM

This is a very important question since we all struggle with it, and it's even worse when you go to grad school since then you are trained to read like a literary scholar/professor. Whenever I sit down to read a book, I'm a professor (who grades for a living) and a scholar (with a head full of literary theory), yet also a passionate lover of reading. Some of my friends claim that this has ruined reading for them; they lament they rarely read for pleasure anymore, and everything has to be geared toward their research or their class. For me, however, I find that (as other people have suggested) I can turn the critical focus on and off to some degree. I can sit down and enjoy Young Adult fiction, for example, and not expect it to convey the latest trends of postcolonial thought. In short, I almost always read for sheer enjoyment...however, my definition of enjoyment has been shaped by years of being a writer (both of fiction and more academic writing) as well as being a teacher. I think I most enjoy good writing even above a good story, at at times, even of characters. Style, strong sentences, and a way with words simply weighs more heavily with me now, and even an arresting story can lose my interest if the language is spare and uninteresting. Right now, I'm reading an old novel which is written so beautifully, though it's a bit derivative and has cardboard characters; and yet, I keep reading since the writer is talented and I marvel at her ability to weave her narrative and delight me with new ways of saying the same old things. This is the curse of reading like a writer--or a teacher, I suppose--but at the same time, I'm glad I can see and appreciate these qualities. When I started reading seriously as a teenager, these qualities were almost completely lost on me as I sought story above all; but stories, in the end, are only a small part of what brings me back to a book these days. I need writing first and foremost. After all, even Shakespeare's stories are borrowed and often very implausible--even unsatisfying. But the writing!

12-07-2013, 11:45 PM	#23
Joshua Grasso Enthusiast Posts: 27 Karma: 447660 Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: Ada, Oklahoma Device: Kindle Fire	This is a very important question since we all struggle with it, and it's even worse when you go to grad school since then you are trained to read like a literary scholar/professor. Whenever I sit down to read a book, I'm a professor (who grades for a living) and a scholar (with a head full of literary theory), yet also a passionate lover of reading. Some of my friends claim that this has ruined reading for them; they lament they rarely read for pleasure anymore, and everything has to be geared toward their research or their class. For me, however, I find that (as other people have suggested) I can turn the critical focus on and off to some degree. I can sit down and enjoy Young Adult fiction, for example, and not expect it to convey the latest trends of postcolonial thought. In short, I almost always read for sheer enjoyment...however, my definition of enjoyment has been shaped by years of being a writer (both of fiction and more academic writing) as well as being a teacher. I think I most enjoy good writing even above a good story, at at times, even of characters. Style, strong sentences, and a way with words simply weighs more heavily with me now, and even an arresting story can lose my interest if the language is spare and uninteresting. Right now, I'm reading an old novel which is written so beautifully, though it's a bit derivative and has cardboard characters; and yet, I keep reading since the writer is talented and I marvel at her ability to weave her narrative and delight me with new ways of saying the same old things. This is the curse of reading like a writer--or a teacher, I suppose--but at the same time, I'm glad I can see and appreciate these qualities. When I started reading seriously as a teenager, these qualities were almost completely lost on me as I sought story above all; but stories, in the end, are only a small part of what brings me back to a book these days. I need writing first and foremost. After all, even Shakespeare's stories are borrowed and often very implausible--even unsatisfying. But the writing!